Waking up after another night of so-so sleep we head down to the reception to await the pick-up for todays tour, the Peninsula tour. After picking up the rest of the backpackers for some 45 minutes we head out for some harbor where we are able to eat breakfast (since the one advertised isn’t really worth it’s name according to the tour-guide himself) when a few people get on a boat to watch some seals.

Next stop is Boulders Beach, a small beach not really noteworthy at all before a few decades ago when a colony of penguins decided this was a cool place to chill out at. Penguins are quite interesting animals to look at, I could see myself having a pet penguin or possible a stuffed up one in a mansion as I get older. As we continued south down on the peninsula it was time to get a bicycle ride for some 6 kilometers or so. Very nice, fresh air, awesome views and tranquil way of transportation, very nice indeed. After lunch at Buffelfontstein we headed on towards two the places I’ve really looked forward to set my feet at, Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope.Very nice sights and a dozen of photos later we head back towards the Green Elephant. A nice tour, not that bad with 50€ each for a full day although it would of course have been cheaper to do on your own – which wouldn’t happen since we are lazy. After picking up laundry we went back to Long street, Abuntu backpackers to be more precice, where we had made reservations in order to get a bit closer to the city bowl area for a change.

At Abuntu we find out that “Chad” had double-booked us but not bothered to call back to Green Elephant to inform us about that. Good for Chad that he wasn’t working now, the lady at the reception went through all guidebooks and lists she had after we’d explained that she would have to find us a double in the close vicinity. She finds the place “Sleep and Go Backpackers” which is just a block away. Excellent. We go there and realize that the place is a set of dungeons but are too tired to find alternative accommodation – and instead go all the way the dungeon route and choose a room without windows (and not facing Long street which could get noisy we suspect).

After quick shower and we examine Long street by night and stumble upon another of Hanna’s tips – Royal Eatery. A place famous for their burgers. We find out however that we need to wait for a table, in the waiting room (rather than at the bar). The waiting room turns out to be a club in the same building, quite nice. As we order drinks at the bar a guy stops and calls out “You!” towards us. It’s the italian-looking guy from Island Vibe Knysna, small world. Apparently his band is playing later tonight so we promise to get back and after truly tasty burgers (yours truly had a vegetarian one with blue cheese) we return for a rock concert by “Jet Black & The Multicolors”. After a long day finishing with a decent concert we get back to our dungeons with a smile on our faces and a ringing in our ears.

Waking up by the alarm I cross my fingers as Mona checks the weather, – perfect weather she sighs as we both could have used a couple of hours more sleep. Another south african design feature has made it to the Green Elephant; the doorbell to the gate plays a melody that sounds loud and clearly audible for all rooms. Very convenient, add that to the fact that our neighboring rooms are bathrooms which people stumble to lately and slam the doors to (when they don’t mistake our door for one and try to wrestle up our door that is). The luxury room didn’t feel that luxurious at that time.

Up to Table mountain with a Excite cab (good, cheap and relatively reliable) and we get to the cable station around 0700. That should be 30 minutes before opening but turns out to be an hour, we manage to get on the first cabin up and enjoy the sights. Slightly cloudy at first but after a breakfast on the top the skies are clear and blue. Awesome sights and we stroll around for some time before we decide we had enough views for one day. Going down we see that the queues are still long and slow – good thing we went up early after all.

We get dropped off by the taxi on top of Long street to check that out, we grab some cold drinks at a convenient store and stroll down this kao san road:ish street of Cape down and are encountered by three transvestites who appear very upset that I didn’t bring an extra drink for them. We stroll down the street and spot Addis in Cape, a place recommended for eating by Mona’s friend Hanna. Awesome ethiopian food, however I was slightly surprised when the waiter turned our bowls upside down and poured out the food but this was apparently all according to their tradition. Despite long street we find no shoes for Mona and give up and start to head home. And find a pair of shoes of course.

We want to continue using the convenient and local-style minibus taxis and after some navigation get to “top deck” – the main hub of these. After some impressive south african organizational efforts we get back to Green Elephant. We hand in some laundry, hassle a bit with bookings and head out to a place in the neighborhood called Ganesh which serves local african food. Yours truly enjoyed pap’n’veg, quite delicious but the portions were sized for half a platoon. Mona went for the Springboek but gave it up after a bite or two, apparently a very distinct taste of liver that wasn’t appreciated. After enjoying the dinner it was back to our silence paradise at the Green Elephant again.

It was now more than due time to get Mona a new pair of shoes and yours truly had missed a dry-sack for his gadgets in the vicinity of water so with those two main targets we headed off to the shopping mall that was open on a Sunday, Cavender or something similar. The minibus-taxis worked like a charm and we started the shopping with a very nice breakfast at Doppio-Zero. Ordering some Mango-yoghurt-shake, some Halumi, Avocado and the other general healthy-tasty stuff ended on a 15€ bill – not like in Sweden yet but certainly more expensive than outside the capital.

There were plenty of stores, as well as employees and wares but nothing that Mona or myself ended up buying so at lunch time we gave up and headed back towards the Green Elephant. A quick change of clothes and a taxi later we got to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, who also hosts concerts on Sundays. After some strolling, we just had to walk the “Smuts-track” for instance, we got up to the concert area and were surprised to see quite a lot of people cosily enjoying their picnics or drinks waiting for the artists. There were three main artists, apparently young up-and-coming artists of south africa, however not more than average in my not so humble opinion. The last guy was technically skilled and had a really intensive voice but to be honest the three-minute plus solos of guitar-masturbation makes it hard to give a positive overall review.

Back to the Green Elephant just in time to avoid the rain we changed gear again and found ourselves a sushi-place in the neighborhood, Sushi-House or something like that, that we had heard of earlier – supposedly best in town. It may be an exaggeration but it was really really nice sushi. Quite a small place with two chefs inside a conveyor belt Japanese-style who although some lax ideas about hygiene were very skilled and made the sushi not only awesome tasting but also a delight for the eye. Completely full and happy we slowly stumbled back to Green Elephant to try to get some proper Internet access for blogging, e-mailing, sorting out remaining accommodation among other things. The stipulated wi-fi hadn’t been working for two days so I capitulated and just used ethernet, about 3 meters from a bunch of Swedish teenagers playing cards. Lovely.

After writing some blogs it was time to go to sleep, perhaps one day I will be able to keep up the blogging to real-time but apparently not on this trip. Tomorrow it’s Table Mountain and depending on weather it’s early morning or late afternoon…